


Expectations

by ClaraxBarton



Series: AU Alphabet [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Natasha Romanov, M/M, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Bucky had never really got those 'expectations vs. reality' memes. Maybe because his expectations had always been ridiculously low.Still, it was damn nice to have his expectations blown out of the water.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: AU Alphabet [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685266
Comments: 35
Kudos: 253





	Expectations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hawksonfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawksonfire/gifts).



> Short and sweet today!
> 
> Now beta read by the amazing Ro!!

Five years ago, Bucky Barnes had been an almost respectable person.

He’d been the dutiful, doted-upon son of George and Winifred Barnes, older brother to Rebecca and Sarah and Rachel Barnes, Cum Laude graduate of MIT and had used the GI Bill to pay for college after serving in the Army for six years. He had a job lined up at Hammer Industries and his own apartment, and life was actually looking like it wouldn’t suck forever.

But then he was in the wrong place at the wrong time - or, rather, he was in the exact right place.

Justin Hammer liked to take - and make - every opportunity to try to convince the world he was just as cool and rich and just as  _ everything _ as Tony Stark. Which meant he liked to throw parties. And he liked to invite people he wanted to impress and woo. And, wildly, Bucky was someone Hammer wanted to woo. 

He’d gone from his medical discharge from the Army for getting blown the fuck up and needing a prosthetic left arm to going to MIT and developing an incredibly intricate and - if Bucky said so himself - badass prosthetic complete with neural interface. 

So of course Hammer wanted that - wanted the guy who had come up with the arm and the arm itself - the prototype attached to Bucky’s left shoulder. So, sure. Wooing was cool.

Parties? Less cool.

Parties at Justin Hammer’s East Egg beach house… infinitely less cool.

So Bucky spent the party sipping on a single glass of champagne - he’d made the mistake of getting drunk after coming back stateside about eight times too many before he’d said thanks, never again - and hugged the walls of whatever room he was in and snuck a few frighteningly fancy hors d'oeuvres and tried to commit to memory anything that might be worth telling Becca about later.

He had a lot of anecdotes about old people and drunk people and Justin Hammer spectacularly failing to impersonate Tony Stark when he caught sight of two incredibly attractive people acting like horny teenagers.

A white woman, slight and red-haired and wearing a black jumpsuit that looked like it had been painted onto her smooth, pale skin was wrapped around a much taller, broad-shouldered white guy with blond hair and a purple turtleneck and dark jeans that fit him just as obscenely as the woman’s clothes.

They had their hands and mouths all over each other and were edging out of the room, towards the foyer, and Bucky…

Bucky was bored - and the party sucked - and they were hot. So he edged out of the room too.

And watched the couple fumble and fondle their way up the grand staircase in the foyer that led to the upper levels of Hammer’s mansion. Levels that the guests had politely been told to stay the fuck away from.

The guy caught sight of Bucky and, instead of calling him on his voyeurism, actually  _ winked _ . And then put his tongue back down the woman’s throat and pulled her up the stairs.

Bucky watched until they were out of sight, feeling… a lot of weird things.

Half an hour later, he was outside on the heated porch, listening to the waves and enjoying the fact that no one else had dared to brave the cold air.

Until the big blond-haired guy showed up at Bucky’s elbow. His hair was a wreck, but he otherwise looked completely unruffled after what was no doubt a spectacular sexual encounter with the redhead.

“So,” the guy said and leaned against the railing next to Bucky, turning to look at him instead of the moonlight ocean, “come here often?”

Bucky stared at him.

_ Seriously? _

But the guy was grinning, wide and bright and so clearly used to being able to get anything with that grin - and fuck, did Bucky immediately want to give him anything.

“Hopefully not,” Bucky found himself saying instead of remaining silent.

The guy laughed, and that… was even better than his grin. It warmed Bucky up far more effectively than the heaters spread around the porch.

“I hear you there. Hammer is… something else.”

Bucky nodded. He already regretted signing his contract. He should have taken the job with Stark instead. Becca had told him that. He should have listened.

“So, uh, any chance you want to get out of here?”

Bucky arched an eyebrow at the guy.

“Weren’t you just… Didn’t you  _ just _ fuck that hot redhead?”

The man’s grin remained dazzling.

“Tasha? Nah. That was just… a thing. But you - you, I’d love to fuck. I’ve got a thing for hot brunets.” And he winked, again.

And, again, it made Bucky feel a lot of things.

“I don’t even know your name.”

“Clint Barton,” the man said and held out one large hand.

Bucky shook it with his left - he had learned that it was a good way to gauge anyone he was thinking about inviting into his bed.

Clint wrapped his fingers around Bucky’s metal fingers, and his eyes widened. He looked down, and his grin grew even brighter.

“You’ve got… Holy shit, that is so metal.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“No, it  _ is _ \- and, well, obviously, it is. How fucking badass. You’re like… a supermodel and Terminator rolled into one.”

Bucky wondered just how long Clint would keep talking, and was more than a little surprised to find he didn’t hate it - Clint or his babbling or the way Clint looked at Bucky like he wanted to eat him.

“Supermodel?”

Clint’s grin turned lopsided and heated.

“Sure. You could model anything. Like that suit you’re wearing. Or, like, underwear. Or my sheets.”

_ Wow _ .

“Do you ever get shot down?”

“All the time.”

Bucky considered it. 

The party really did suck.

And Clint really was hot.

“I’m Bucky.”

“Now  _ that _ is a name I can’t wait to shout.”

-o-

Five years later, Clint was still shouting Bucky’s name, and Bucky… Bucky was anything but respectable.

Not because of the sex with Clint - the copious, athletic, enthusiastic, imaginative, bone-melting sex.

But because the ‘thing’ with Tasha had been Clint and his partner, Natasha Romanov, stealing a five-million-dollar diamond from Hammer’s personal safe, and Clint had then used Bucky - and the awesome sex that night - as a cover during the ensuing investigation.

And one thing had led to another had led to more than a little corporate espionage on Bucky’s part against Hammer and eventually to Bucky becoming Natasha and Clint’s eyes and ears on complicated heists - missions, Clint called them, as if that made any difference.

So, Bucky wasn’t respectable anymore. Not even a little.

But he was rich and happy and had a hell of a sex life and a new best friend - Natasha was a fucking goddess - and, well, he didn’t have to go to crappy parties anymore unless his goal was to rob the place blind.

Things had gone from looking like they might not suck forever to being fucking  _ awesome _ .

-o-

  
  



End file.
